Dr. Thorpe:Oh man, this outfit is bad to bone. I can't even make fun of it. It's totally unimpeachable.

Zack:I know what you mean. It's perfect for anyone who wants people to think there are a dozen baby raccoons nursing at their teats beneath their fur poncho.

Dr. Thorpe:She looks like the wife of the richest trapper in Canada.

Zack:It's great camouflage for snipers who have to hide in a country overrun by thousands of raccoons. The enemy will scan the hills with binoculars and just see a seething carpet of raccoon tails. Then *pow* a head explodes and this woman stands up and scampers off.

Dr. Thorpe:And the longer she survives out in the woods by eating raccoons, the warmer and more camouflaged she gets. She's going to get more and more unstoppable until she eventually collapses under the ridiculous weight of all the tails.

Zack:Maybe that's why it took so long to catch that DC sniper. Maybe the parking lot of every Michaels is full of raccoons trying to get to the delicious felt snips and broken buttons in the dumpster.

Dr. Thorpe:Also, you can just barely see her ankle, but she looks like she stepped in a goat.

Zack:I love the ridiculousness of sheer tights for her legs. Let's raise your upper body temperature to a thousand degrees so that it actually melts off your frozen thighs.

Dr. Thorpe:We could look at this another way and imagine that this is the last photo of this woman alive, because she's being suddenly ambushed by a dozen raccoons right as it's being taken. They're going to skeletonize her head and torso in about half an hour, there will just be a bloody pair of legs sitting there in the snow. Because raccoons don't eat legs for religious reasons.

Zack:They came swarming from the trees in relentless waves. Seconds after the click of the shutter she was picked clean.

Dr. Thorpe:But on her face is the calm smile of a woman resigned to her grisly fate.

(indecipherable yelling as eight heroes stand still in an ankle-deep wavepool)

About This Column

Fashion SWAT... the fashion industry is obsessed with impracticality. We know that what designers create was never meant to be worn by the grimy masses, but that doesn't somehow diminish how ridiculous many of these costumes are. Make no mistake, they are costumes, and like a Halloween prize pageant we will turn our discerning gaze on the grievous fashion misfires of Paris, Milan, and New York. We're not pulling any punches, and we're definitely not interested in making any friends. We're Joan Rivers without Melissa Rivers to temper our screeching. We're the Fashion Police in jack boots. We are Fashion SWAT.